Before judging poor people who buy treats with food stamps, remember they like to reward their kids too

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is a government program which offers nutrition assistance for low-income families and people. The program is commonly known as food stamps.
Ayrika Whitney/USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee

Demetrius Triplett, 51, standing outside a market where he works, says he and his older brother "ain't going to make it" if their food stamp benefits are cut.(Photo: Tom Charlier)

Her name was Juanita. Her struggles with diabetes and other maladies left her unable to work – and dependent on food stamps for herself and her children.

For a time, I would drive her to the supermarket once a month. She’d buy chicken, rice and other foods to cobble together meals as best as she could, but she also bought ice cream, soft drinks and cookies as treats for her five school-aged children.

Kind of like what non-food stamp recipients do.

And like Johnson, who said her refrigerator was like "a play toy," over the summer with her children being home, so was Juanita’s refrigerator - mostly because treats and television was one way for her family to enjoy time together.

Kind of like it is for many non-food stamp recipients.

Which is why I hate it when people try to justify the slashing of food stamp benefits because poor people use them to get a taste of small pleasures that others take for granted.

Trump’s budget director, Mick Mulvaney, said that the cuts were made from the perspective of people paying the taxes, and that they were no longer going to gauge compassion by the numbers of people receiving assistance.

Problem is – besides the fact that Mulvaney purports to be speaking for all taxpayers – those who believe that most poor people waste most of their food stamps on junk food have a narrow, if not misinformed, perspective.

Earlier this year, for example, state Rep. Sheila Butt, a Columbia, Tenn. Republican, proposed a bill to ban food stamp recipients from buying snacks like candy, cookies, cakes and sodas and grocers from selling those items to them.

Recently, grocer Mike Toarmina said that few people use SNAP at his small Chelsea store, but that they often buy snacks and soft drinks. To him, that’s misuse.

But to William Spriggs, chief economist for the AFL-CIO and former assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Labor during the Obama administration, said that’s missing the bigger picture.

“At this little corner place, a lot of people may be avoiding buying groceries there on a regular basis,” Spriggs said, saying that many times, Walmart runs out of food during the first two weeks of the month because SNAP recipients tend to shop there.

“So, when they go [to a corner grocery] they probably just go there to buy sodas or candy.”

As for those SNAP recipients who can’t manage to get to a Walmart, their purchases likely reflect the meager choices of Memphis’ food deserts.

According to The Food Trust, a non-profit that works to provide affordable, accessible food throughout the country, supermarkets have fled from low-income areas in Memphis such as Binghampton, Soulsville and Frayser.

That means many residents must travel long distances to buy food, or they must pay higher prices at stores that don’t offer much in the way of fresh fruits and vegetables.

It is that lack of access that leads many SNAP recipients to buy much of the sugary foods that keep them obese and unhealthy.

But chances are massive cuts to SNAP won’t do much to attract supermarkets to food deserts.

Nor will judging poor people for being stuck with meager choices offered in those deserts, nor for buying treats and snacks like Juanita did, do much to tackle the low wages and the deep poverty that forces people to rely on food stamps to begin with.

These days, it’s far easier to police and punish the poor, not push policies to ease their predicament.

“It’s this thing where if you’re poor, I have to teach you a lesson by making you destitute because you bought your kid a piece of candy?” Spriggs said. “Come on!”